A Certain Slant of Light—Emily Dickinson in Song

"There’s a certain Slant of light, Winter Afternoons— That oppresses, like the Heft Of Cathedral Tunes—"

Emily Dickinson spent most of her life in a single room, but her imagination has reached far beyond 19th century Amherst. In her solitude, she penned nearly 1,800 poems—fleeting, enigmatic, and profound—capturing the textures of grief, wonder, death, nature, and divinity with astonishing clarity and depth. Her inner world, vast and unspeakably rich, and her style of writing, uniquely musical, has captivated readers and artists for generations.

In A Certain Slant of Light, Operantics invites you to step into that luminous interior. This evocative program features a collection of art songs and chamber works by 20th and 21st century composers who have given Dickinson’s poetry new voice through music.

The program highlights a range of musical responses to Dickinson’s words, including works by Australian composers, weaving a uniquely local thread through a universal tapestry of introspection and illumination.